This article has been contributed by Yuri Vanetik.
Art in all its permutations has always been valued for more than its decorative qualities. Like music, art evokes emotions, passions, and provokes thought. It encodes values, shapes identity, and reveals how societies think. It’s a reflection of history, religion, and it is, I submit, at its greatest a mystery.
Nowhere is this clearer than in the tradition of Eastern Orthodox icons. For centuries, icons have been “cultural DNA” in Russia, Ukraine, and across the Slavic world – wherever Greek Orthodox faith dominates. Yet, icons are beyond religious expression or relics. For me, collecting these works is not just about heritage or beauty. It’s a lens through which I interpret modern business strategy when I work on transnational business combinations, market entry projects, or political roadblocks. As an attorney and political strategist who, at times, advises Eastern European business leaders and politicians, I’ve found that icons teach lessons about resilience, symbolism, and culture that apply directly to leadership and negotiation. Moreover, they often explain seemingly irrational or awkward business rituals. These are often predicated on superstitions, traditions, and the sense of identity of principals and opinion leaders.
Why Icons Rein in Eastern Europe
Icons are not simply religious art. They are theological statements executed according to strict rules of form, color, and symbolism. They present saints and narratives not as decoration but as spiritual tools.
In Eastern Europe, icons also became symbols of resistance. Under Mongol rule, czarist repression, and Soviet atheism, icons often survived as quiet affirmations of faith and identity. Owning or venerating an icon was an act of cultural defiance. In fact, in the Soviet Union where I was born many atheists were avid collectors of religious art – mainly icons.
That matters today because the psychology embedded in iconography—patience, endurance, sacrifice, fidelity to tradition—still influences the region’s leaders, business elites, and serves as an affirmation of social solidarity. To understand Eastern European politics and business, a business person or professional advisor needs to understand this important heritage in its multiple dimensions.
What Business Leaders Can Learn From Art
Engagement with art isn’t just for collectors. It cultivates skills essential for leadership:
- Symbolic Signaling. Leaders use art to project legitimacy and sophistication. As Forbes noted in “Leadership Stagecraft: Why Art Is Good for Business,” art patronage can be as powerful as a branding strategy.
- Creative Problem Solving. Exposure to artistic thinking fosters innovation. “What Great Artists Can Teach Business Leaders” (Forbes Business Development Council) argues that studying artists helps executives break orthodoxies and embrace risk.
- Empathy and Cultural Literacy. Art teaches leaders to read nuance, symbols, and values. Harvard Business Review has long emphasized that culture shapes organizations more than strategy alone (“Culture Matters Most”).
- Long-Term Orientation. Iconography emphasizes sacrifice and endurance. Leaders steeped in this tradition may prioritize legacy and collective trust over short-term gains.
Ergo, art–beyond icons-is not a badge of luxury or affirmation of one’s success (old masters adorning the walls of an opulent home). It’s a dynamic, powerful toolkit for perception, interpretation, decision-making, and leadership.
From My Family Legacy to Professional Edge
By day, father was a mechanical engineer working at the famous Antonov Aviation headquarters in Kyiv, Ukraine. By night, he quietly collected icons in Soviet Ukraine, at a time when religious artifacts were frowned upon or even dangerous to own. His persistence made me realize at a young age the idea that values endure even under oppression. Collecting icons was his discreet rebellion against the racist dictatorship into which I was born.
As I began collecting, I realized that icons were more than family heirlooms. They were windows into cultural psychology. Why were certain saints painted repeatedly? Why invest gold and labor into small wooden panels? The answers revealed societies’ anxieties, aspirations, and moral frameworks.
That awareness translated into professional insight. Today, when I advise Eastern European politicians or Eurasian business leaders, I often find that understanding their cultural symbols is as important as understanding their balance sheets. International business is not just about projected profits; it is, at times, about a search for meaning and dignity by individuals who survived assassinations, show trials, and torture in prisons. What did not kill them made them stronger, and their business rituals can be interpreted through their art – art they collect and subconsciously rely upon.
Using Icons (and Art In General) to Win Complex Negotiations
In many negotiations, especially in Eastern Europe, numbers are not the whole story. Symbols and gestures can matter more:
- Psychological Profiling. Just as saints represent archetypes of sacrifice, endurance, or protection, political leaders adopt similar symbolic roles. Recognizing these archetypes helps me anticipate their strategies.
- Respect for Historical Memory. References to religious or cultural imagery can win trust. Alternatively, it can cause great offense and indignation. Awareness of these symbols and respect for the ritual that they project into business life avoids costly mistakes.
- Strategic Zen. A culture shaped by iconography often prizes endurance. Leaders may prefer long-term relationships to quick deals. “Breaking bread” is important. Sauna visits and hunting and fishing trips are more important than golf outings in the West. Knowing this helps me align negotiation tactics with cultural expectations.
Five Lessons for Business Leaders
Based on years of collecting and advising, here are five lessons leaders everywhere can draw from art and iconography:
- Treat cultural literacy as a strategic asset. Just as you study finance, study history, religion, and art in the regions where you operate.
- Use art to communicate values. Whether through corporate collections or symbolic gestures, art signals legitimacy, stability, honor, and identity.
- Read between the lines. Numbers may lie; cultural symbols rarely do. Leaders who can interpret them gain a huge advantage.
- Incorporate the art history into leadership training. Arts-based training has been shown to improve collaboration, creativity, and conflict resolution. Its more compelling than the modern trend of shallow “virtue-signaling”.
- Respect symbolic boundaries. In high-context cultures like Eastern Europe, symbolic mistakes can derail business faster than legal ones. The same is also true in Asian countries.
Art: Ultimate Leadership Strategy
For me, icons are not only beautiful and mysterious—they are tools for understanding people. They help me judge when a leader is appealing to endurance versus innovation, when a gesture is about pride rather than profit, when a negotiation protocol or deal point hinges on honor more than on empirical terms. Understanding art helps us to understand how to save face and how to empower our adversaries to do the same, bringing them back to deal points in a contract and away from emotional roadblocks.
That ability to decode culture is paramount. In a global business environment, leaders succeed not by imposing their frameworks but by interpreting others’. Art provides the lens. And icons, with their layered history and symbolism, provide a particularly powerful lens.
About the Author: Yuri Vanetik is a business attorney, political strategist, and an art and wine collector.
References & Further Reading
- Thomas Kell & Gregory T. Carrott, “Culture Matters Most,” Harvard Business Review (hbr.org)
- Shellie Karabell, “Leadership Stagecraft: Why Art Is Good For Business,” Forbes (forbes.com)
- Jorge Rodriguez, “What Great Artists Can Teach Business Leaders,” Forbes Business Development Council (forbes.com)
- Arts-Based Training overview (en.wikipedia.org)